RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
Strange Detective Mysteries, March 1941, with "The Case of the Talking Dead"
At least if he was crazy, Nick Valentine reflected, he wasn't the only one, for the girl in the taxi-cab had told him that she too had talked to a dead man! And then she opened her handbag—and Nick knew that if anyone ever talked to him again, the chances were a million to one that they would be taking to a dead man!
NICK VALENTINE was whistling—badly off key—as he stepped out of the self-service elevator and made for his apartment. He stopped in front of his door, and fished the key-ring out of his fob pocket. In so doing, he happened to look down at the floor, and he suddenly became taut and wary.
There were three little drops on the green carpeting. Bright red drops. They could be nothing but drops of blood, and they were directly in front of his own apartment door.
Nick glanced swiftly up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight.
Instinctively, he had already transferred the keys to his left hand. With his right he had slipped the small, squarish automatic out of his hip pocket. Now he dropped to one knee and touched a finger to the closest of the three drops. It came away red. The blood was still wet. It had not yet coagulated, nor had it been entirely absorbed by the carpet nap.
Nick reached over and inserted one of the keys in the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open. He stepped over the three drops of blood, and stopped short just within the threshold of his apartment, the automatic held loosely in his hand. He frowned thoughtfully. When he had gone out, an hour ago, he had left the lights on. Now they were off. The small foyer, and the library beyond, were in darkness, except for a shaft of light filtering in from the hallway.
By that shadowy illumination, Nick was able to discern the vague outline of a man seated in the armchair at the far window of the library, facing him. All he could see was a dim white blob of a face, and the man's hands, resting on the arms of the chair.
Apparently, the man was not armed, but Nick took no chances. He kept the automatic trained on him, and reached over to the wall switch. He clicked it, but no light came on. The shrouding darkness still prevailed in the library.
At the same moment, the visitor in the chair spoke.
"Please come in, Mr. Valentine. You must forgive me, but it was I who removed the fuse. I prefer to speak with you in darkness."
NICK realized that he was a perfect target standing in the
doorway with the light from the corridor behind him. He reached
over swiftly and slammed the door shut, cutting off the last bit
of light from the hall. It was still possible to see a little,
however, for a sliver of moonlight trickled in through the slats
of the Venetian blind. Nick could see that the man in the
armchair had not moved.
"An excellent strategic move," the man applauded. "However, a trifle slow; if I had wanted to shoot you. But I am not armed. My name is Mangin. Frederick Mangin."
Nick Valentine barely repressed an exclamation of surprise.
Mangin chuckled. "I see you've heard my name. I daresay you've heard it recently—within the hour?"
Nick pursed his lips. "Yes," he said. "I've heard it—within the hour."
"Shall I tell you where you heard it? It was mentioned at the office of the American Press Service, where you were closeted with Roger Bronson. Bronson is the head of the A.P. Service, and your chief. You, Mr. Valentine, are the ace investigator for that newspaper syndicate. You were called back from Miami for that interview. And you were assigned the job of locating a certain millionaire who has been missing for nine days. The missing millionaire is myself!"
"That's right," said Nick Valentine. "That's just exactly right. But how could you know? That interview was pretty damned secret."
Frederick Mangin laughed. "You are going to be much more surprised in a few minutes, my dear Mr. Valentine. But first—let me ask you something. Did you notice those three drops of blood outside your door?"
"Yes. I noticed them."
"Excellent. Before long, your activities may become undesirable to certain parties. At that time, you will find three more drops of blood. They will be a warning to you, Mr. Valentine. When you see them again, take my advice, and leave New York."
Nick's eyes had become more accustomed to the dark, but he was still unable to see very much of Frederick Mangin, except that he was making no suspicious moves. Stealthily, Nick had extracted a fountain pen flashlight from his vest pocket, and he now held it ready in his left hand.
"Look here, Mr. Mangin," he said, "I don't know what you're talking about. You've been missing for nine days, and now you turn up in my apartment. Why do you insist on talking in the dark—"
"Wait," said Mangin, "And please don't turn that flashlight on—yet. I have a message for you. You may be able to solve the mystery of my disappearance by going to the Candia Club. Remember that—the Candia Club."
Nick frowned. "Why the hell should I go to the Candia Club? Why can't you solve the mystery for me?"
Mr. Mangin made no reply.
Nick's eyes never left his blurred, shadowy figure for an instant.
"What kind of game is this, Mangin?" he demanded.
Still, Mangin did not speak.
With a sudden chill of apprehension, Nick Valentine snapped the flashlight switch. He flashed the thin beam squarely in Mangin's face. And he uttered a low, sharp oath.
Frederick Mangin was sitting erect in the armchair. But the reason he was sitting like that was because a long knife, which had been driven clean through his throat, virtually pinned him to the back of the chair. His dead body was held erect only by that knife-blade.
For a long minute, Nick Valentine stood utterly still, listening for noises in the apartment, and trying to convince himself that the conversation he had just had was not an hallucination. He was prepared to swear that Frederick Mangin had not been killed in his presence, for he had watched the man from the moment he entered the apartment, and he would surely have seen the knife strike his throat, or the hand of the killer, or the jerk of the victim's body. But Mangin had not moved. Therefore, Mangin must have been dead all the time. Therefore—Nick felt a little dizzy at the thought—he had been carrying on a conversation with a dead man!
Only one other explanation came to Nick's mind, there must be someone else in the apartment who had done the talking.
HE swung the beam of the flashlight away from the
gruesome face of the dead Frederick Mangin, and sent it darting
into every corner of the room, following it with the muzzle of
his automatic. The two walls at the right and left were lined
with bookcases from top to bottom. He covered those walls with
the light, then turned it into the foyer in which he stood. The
little end-table, with the mirror over it, was in its usual
place, as was the telephone which rested on it. There was nobody
in the foyer.
Carefully, Nick stepped into the library, immediately putting his back to the wall. He turned the flashlight on the desk with its typewriter, on the other easy chair, in front of the bookcase on the right-hand wall, and on the couch near the fireplace. Then he swung the beam around to the left, where the door to the bedroom was located. The door was closed.
Nick stood there thoughtfully. Then he went over to the body of Frederick Mangin. He touched the dead man's face. It was still warm. He could not be dead very long. There was a broad splotch of scarlet on the white front of his dress shirt, where the blood from his throat had spurted. There were flecks of blood on his Tuxedo jacket, and on the legs of his trousers. His eyes were staring glassily, straight ahead. He must have been that way all the time that Nick was carrying on the conversation with him.
There was no sound in the room except for Nick Valentine's breathing. He stalked slowly toward the bedroom door, then suddenly flung it wide open, lancing the beam of his flashlight through the doorway. It took him only a moment to make sure there was no one in there.
Nick returned to the library. He crossed to the foyer, and pushed open the kitchen door. He had left this for the last, because he was sure that the voice which had spoken to him had come from the library. The examination of the kitchen was short, and yielded the same results as the other rooms. Beyond question, there was no one else in the apartment.
Nick Valentine rubbed his eyes with the back of his gun-hand.
"I'll be damned!" he muttered to himself.
ON a sudden hunch, he opened the corridor door, and
peered out, to make sure those three drops of blood were still
there. They were.
He shook his head groggily, and closed the door. Then he picked up the telephone, and dialled the private number of Roger Bronson, his chief at the A. P.
"Boss," he said, "I've found Frederick Mangin."
He could distinctly hear Bronson's swift intake of breath at the other end. "You've found him? Already? By God, Nick, I always knew you were good. But this beats everything! ImagineBramahcracking a case thirty minutes after getting on the job! Nick, you're a wizard—"
"Wait a minute, Boss," Nick Valentine said ruefully. "Wait till you hear the rest of it—"
"You bet I want to hear the rest of it. Have you got Mangin there?"
"Yes, but—"
"Where are you calling from?"
"My own apartment—"
"You brought him up there, eh? That's using the old bean! Keep him in private till I can get my reporters and cameramen over. This will scoop the U. P. down into a ten-foot hole—"
"Hold everything, Boss," Nick Valentine pleaded. "Will you please first listen to me—"
"No, no—don't waste time now. I'm shooting a gang of the boys over—"
"Mangin is dead!" Nick fairly shouted into the phone.
Bronson kept on talking for a second, till Nick's words registered. Then he exclaimed excitedly, "What's that? What's that you say? He's—dead?"
"Dead. Stabbed in the throat."
"He was killed in your apartment?"
"Yes."
"Who killed him?"
"How should I know? I found him dead."
"Then—" Bronson's voice cooled off perceptibly—"then you haven't solved anything?"
"That's what I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't give me a chance."
"Have you got any kind of clue?"
"Yes. It's a kind of clue. Mangin warned me to be on the lookout for three drops of blood. And he tipped me off to go to—"
"Wait a minute, Nick, wait a minute!" Bronson interrupted pleadingly. "Let me get this straight. You say Mangin talked before he died?"
"Hell, no. He was dead when I got here. But—"
"Then how the hell could he talk to you?" Bronson fairly shrieked.
"That," Nick Valentine said angrily, "is something for you to figure out in your spare time!"
And he hung up.
NICK VALENTINE had gone with the A.P. five years ago, giving up a lucrative private detective agency job. His duties were solely investigative, and he worked only when there was a big case to crack. Otherwise, he lived like a gentleman of leisure. When a really big mystery came up, Nick Valentine did the sleuthing, but he never wrote a newspaper story. He solved the case, and then turned it over to the A. P. reporters.
In this instance, they had brought him all the way back from a vacation in Florida, and he had been sore because he had thought they didn't really need him. But now, after holding that conversation with the dead man, he was ready to concede that there was something to the case, after all.
He left the body of Frederick Mangin just as it sat, and went out of the apartment, closing the door carefully and making sure that it was locked. He stepped over the three drops of blood, and went down the corridor to the elevator, and pushed the button.
Horace, the colored elevator operator, showed all his teeth in a grin.
"You didn't stay upstairs long, Mister Valentine. Gawn back to Florida?"
"Not yet, Horace," Nick said abruptly as the cage slid downward. He took his apartment key off the ring, and handed it to Horace. "You know Mr. Bronson, my boss? He's been here several times before."
"I know him, Mister Valentine."
"Well, I think he'll be showing up pretty soon. Give him this key, and tell him to go up and make himself at home. He may be a little hot under the collar. If he is, tell him he'll find a fresh bottle of Scotch in the kitchen."
Horace nodded, and brought the elevator to a stop at the main floor. Nick went out, and crossed the lobby to the street, nodding to Luther, the colored doorman, on the way.
A taxicab with the flag up came cruising slowly past, and Nick hailed it. He climbed in, saying, "Go across the Park, then down Broadway to Fifty-fourth. I want the Candia Club—"
He stopped talking, suddenly aware that there was someone else in the cab with him.
She was sitting as inconspicuously as possible, far over in the corner, wrapped in a dark fur coat. The collar was turned up, so that only her eyes and the bridge of her nose showed. The cab got going, and swung out of Fifth Avenue into the transverse tunnel across the Park. Nick said, "What the hell—"
"Please forgive me," the girl exclaimed, lowering the collar of her coat to reveal a thin dark face which was beautiful in a strange and mystic sort of way. Her lips were full, her mouth small. Her eyes, deep and dark, studied him appraisingly as she hurried on.
"Please forgive me. I bribed the driver not to lower his flag, and to try to pick you up when you came out. I was afraid—" she threw a hurried glance out through the rear window, then brought her eyes back to meet his—"afraid they're following me. But I had to talk to you!"
"H'm!" Nick frowned. "Well, go ahead and talk."
She hesitated, fumbling with the clasp of her handbag.
"I don't know just how to begin—"
Nick grinned tightly. "That's a good beginning," he said, as his glance dropped down to her fur coat, which had fallen open while she fiddled with the handbag, revealing a flashing glimpse of white, bare skin, above a black silk nightgown. She was wearing nothing but that nightgown under the fur coat.
She flushed under his gaze, and wrapped the coat tight around herself. "I—I had no time to dress. I came out as soon as I awoke from the dream."
"Dream?" he asked incredulously.
She nodded. "I woke up from the dream only a few minutes ago. I dreamed that you were talking with a dead man—"
"What!" Nick reached over and gripped her arm so tightly that she winced. "Say that again!"
She didn't try to remove his arm.
Her great dark eyes seemed to grow larger, deeper, as she spoke. "I saw you clearly in the dream. I even saw the house, and the street. I saw you go upstairs, and see three drops of blood on the carpet. Then I saw you go in with a gun in your hand, and the dead man was seated facing you, and he warned you about the three drops of blood, and told you to go to the Candia Club!"
Nick swore under his breath. If the girl was lying, she was doing a beautiful piece of acting. If she was telling the truthBramahwell, he didn't want to think about that.
"Listen," he said. "Have you got a name?"
Her eyes became vague, her whole bearing suddenly uncertain. "Yes, of course, I'm sure I have. But I can't think of it at the moment." Her forehead wrinkled in a futile effort of concentration. "For the life of me, I can't think of my name!"
"You mean you've lost your memory?"
She nodded, still fumbling at the handbag. "Ever since last night, when I talked with the—the dead man!"
Nick still had hold of her arm. Now he let her go, and took a deep breath.
"Now, wait," he said slowly. "Are you telling me that you talked with a dead man last night?"
"Yes. I came home, and it was dark, and that man was sitting in an armchair."
"Was it the same man who was sitting in my chair?"
"I don't know. It never got light enough for me to see his face clearly. He talked, and spoke of the three drops of blood, and the Candia Club. And then, while he was still talking, I came closer and saw the—the knife in his throat, and realized that he was dead. I—I turned and ran out of the house."
"I see," Nick said, very low, forcing himself to be patient. "And what did you do next?"
"I ran and ran. I really didn't know where I was. Then I found myself in front of a hotel, and went in and paid for a room for the night. I bought this nightgown, and some things from the shop in the hotel lobby, and I got undressed and lay down on the bed. I must have slept all through the day, till I had that dream about you, and woke up. I hurried out to catch you. I did it without thinking. Somehow, I knew I must talk to you."
Nick was watching her with narrowed eyes.
"Didn't it occur to you to get in touch with the police?"
She lowered her eyes and stared down at her lap, as if trying to think. "There was some reason—why I couldn't go to the police. I can't remember it now. If I could only remember who I am, I'd probably recall the reason—"
"So for all you know," Nick asked, "that dead man who talked with you may still be sitting in your room?"
She looked at him miserably. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Sure, sure," he told her. "Sure I believe you. There's nothing strange about your story. Nothing much."
She slumped back in the corner. "I know you don't believe me. And I thought you'd help me—"
"How could I help you?"
"I—I don't know. I feel there's something terribly evil all around me. I feel as if it's enveloping me. I don't know what to do. I must go to the Candia Club, but I'm afraid to go, aloneBramahand with no clothes."
"H'm," said Nick. He reached over to her lap, and took the handbag. "Let's look in here. Maybe there's a clue as to who you are."
She let him have the bag, and he opened it.
As he did so, there was a snap inside the bag, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Immediately, a strange, sweet odor assailed his nostrils, seeming to fill the interior of the cab. That odor seemed to clutch at his brain like an octopus. He felt that in another moment it would have him under.
ANY other man might have remained quiescent for that
extra instant, allowing the strange gas to finish its work, but
Nick had lived too long with a keen sense of danger at his elbow.
When he was on a case he was always poised to ward off attack. He
reacted without thinking.
He flung the bag from him, and at the same time reached over and yanked at the door handle on his right. It flew open, and with the last of his rapidly failing strength, he pushed himself out into nothingness. He saw the flying gutter come up to meet him with a rush, heard the girl's scream from somewhere a great distance behind, and then he struck.
He managed to break the fall with his arms over his head, but even at that it knocked him groggy. He knew that he must have hit with a tremendous thud. If he hadn't broken any bones, he had bruised them pretty badly. But he felt little pain, for the anaesthetic effects of that gas were already at work upon him. Something was whirling around inside his brain as he lay there in the gutter. He got a single glimpse of his cab, speeding away, with the white face of the girl drifting away from the window to fall back into the interior. And then he must have lost consciousness for the moment, for the next thing he remembered was the astringent smell of ammonia, and a white-coated interne bending over him, and a sea of faces looking down on him from the crowd that had gathered around.
A blue-coated policeman and a plainclothes detective were at his side, and the patrolman said, "Here he comes. He's conscious."
The interne removed the sponge from his nose, and said, "His bones must be made of rubber. It's a miracle none of them broke when he took that fall out of the cab."
The detective waved the interne back, and bent over him.
"What happened to you, buddy?"
It was a moment before Nick Valentine answered. Then he said, a puzzled frown on his brows: "I don't know." He sat up. "Who am I? Why am I here?"
For a minute, the detective looked at him queerly. Then he swallowed hard and turned to the patrolman.
"My Gawd, Clancy," he whispered. "The guy has lost his memory!"
THE private office at Headquarters of Inspector Coleman, Chief of Homicide, was playing to capacity business, and there was standing-room only for late-comers. Inspector Coleman was there, chewing a cigar behind his desk. Doctor Hinsley, the Medical Examiner was there, together with Doctor Martindale, head psychiatrist for the Police Department. Also present were Captain Fletcher and Lieutenant Levine, of the Homicide Detail, as well as big, florid-faced Roger Bronson, Chief of the A.P. Service.
The main attraction was Nick Valentine.
Nick was seated in a straight-backed chair, with his hands folded in his lap. The outstanding characteristic about him was the expression of utter vacancy in his eyes.
Doctor Martindale, the psychiatrist, was bending over him, and talking low. "Now listen to me carefully, my friend. If you multiply twenty-two by one-half, what is the result?"
"Eleven!" Nick replied promptly.
Martindale was sweating a little, but he smiled encouragement. "Exactly! Now if you multiply the number of your house my one-half, what is the result?"
The sweating psychiatrist, as well as everybody else, leaned forward tensely to listen to the answer.
Nick beamed, started to say something, and then frowned. "I'm sorry," he said. "You'll have to tell me the number of my house."
Doctor Martindale sighed. Everybody else sighed. The psychiatrist spread his hands in a gesture of resignation, turning to the Medical Examiner.
"There you are, Hinsley," he said. "It's a typical case of partial amnesia, where certain groups of ideas or events are screened from memory, though others stand out clearly."
Inspector Coleman sputtered an oath. He ground his cigar viciously into the glass top of his desk, and got up.
"Dammit, he's got to remember!"
Coleman came around the desk, and stood in front of Nick, shaking a thick finger in his face.
"Look here! You're Nick Valentine! Nick Valentine! You work for the A. P. You're Nick Valentine!"
Nick smiled vaguely. "That's a nice name. Why am I here?"
Coleman closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were in agony. Then he opened them and waved his finger once more.
"There's a dead man in your apartment, Valentine. Remember? You stabbed him in the throat. Frederick Mangin. Remember?"
Nick looked interested. "Why did I stab him?"
Coleman threw up his hands in disgust, and flung away. "We'll hold him for the Grand Jury!" he growled. "He killed Mangin. That was a cock-and-bull story, about finding him in the chair, and talking to the dead man. I've seen cases like this before—where the murderer conveniently loses his memory after killing someone!"
"Nonsense!" Roger Bronson broke in. "Nick had no reason to kill Mangin. When he phoned me, he was as sane as you or I—"
"Sure, sure!" Coleman interrupted sarcastically. "So sane that he gave you a line about having a conversation with a dead man!"
The inspector took Bronson aside, and talked to him in whispers, energetically, for several minutes, turning every once in a while to point at Nick. Bronson argued with him emphatically, finally raising his voice. "It's ridiculous, Coleman. He couldn't have done the other thing. He was in Florida. Let me try him. Maybe I can awaken a spark of memory."
He came over and stood in front of Nick's chair. "Look at me, Nick," he pleaded. "Don't you remember me? You work for me. You're my ace investigator. I pay your salary."
Nick blinked his eyes, and obediently looked up at Bronson. His forehead puckered. "I seem to have some recollection.... something is stirring .... if I could only grasp it!" He looked around the room, petulantly. "If there only weren't so many people in here—"
Bronson seized on the suggestion avidly. He turned around and waved his hands. "Get out, everybody! Leave me alone with him! Maybe we'll crack it!"
Doctor Martindale nodded. "A good suggestion. The presence of so many people is always confusing in this type of case."
BRONSON kept waving his hands, not giving anyone a chance
to argue, until everyone was out of the room. Then he twisted the
catch, locking the door, and heaved a sigh. He turned around and
grinned at Nick Valentine.
"Well, Nick," he said, "we got rid of them at last. And I don't think they suspect a thing!"
Nick grinned back at him. "I didn't think Coleman would fall for it. It's pretty hard to pull the wool over his eyes. And I was afraid for a minute you'd have apoplexy when I tipped you the wink behind the doctor's back." He took out a cigarette and lit it.
Bronson heaved himself up on the edge of the desk, and leaned forward eagerly.
"Let's talk fast before they start getting impatient out there. Give us the low-down on this, Nicky!"
"First," said Nick, allowing smoke to trickle luxuriously through his nostrils, "tell me one thing—have there been any other murders like Mangin's?"
Roger Bronson nodded. "Yesterday, Arnold Dixon, the chemical magnate, was found with a knife in his throat, at the home of his niece, Ellen Dixon. He had been missing for nine days, too. The niece has also disappeared now. The police have kept the whole thing secret, because the news may cause trouble. The Dixon Chemical Works have accepted a huge war order from the United States Government under the Defense Plan."
"Ah!" said Nick. "Then she wasn't lying altogether!"
"Who wasn't lying?"
"The girl in the taxicab."
"The cab you fell out of?"
"I didn't fall out of it. I jumped. There was a girl in that cab, who had also talked to a dead man."
Bronson groaned. "Are you going to start that again?"
Nick sighed. "You don't believe me?" he asked, in much the same tone that the girl had used. "Well, listen to this storyBramahbut promise you won't interrupt."
Bronson kept silence while Nick sketched swiftly what the girl had told him. When he finished, he saw incredulity give way to a look of dawning horror in his boss's eyes.
"Good Lord, Nick! If this is true, then there's a terrible force that we don't understand, working against us. How can the dead possibly speak? How can that girl have dreamed an actual event that was taking place right then?"
Nick Valentine nodded slowly. "That's why I pretended amnesia when they picked me up from the street. I figured that gas was planted in the girl's bag for the purpose of destroying my memory, just as the girl's had been destroyed. So I pretended to fall in with the idea."
Bronson was making notes in shorthand. His eyes were gleaming. "This story will burn up the wires, Nick. Did you know that Frederick Mangin owns the largest synthetic dye factory in the east?"
"Ah!" said Nick. "I wonder how many other key men like Mangin and Dixon have disappeared recently—but whose relatives have not notified the police! That girl, Bronson, was Ellen Dixon. I'm sure of it now!"
"Nick," said Bronson, "this is too big for us to play with. We'll have to take Coleman into our confidence!"
Nick nodded, and Bronson went to the door. He stuck his head out among the crowd waiting in the corridor, and motioned for the Homicide Inspector to come in.
Quickly, they gave him the story, from beginning to end.
Coleman got more and more excited as Nick went on. At last he burst out, "God, this is worse than I thought! We've already gotten two more alarms in the Missing Persons, for men in the same position as Dixon and Mangin. They're Frank Sheppard, of the Sheppard Chemical Corporation, and Andrew Garth, of International Chemicals. We've kept it secret, of course, but the news has leaked out here and there. There's a fifth chemical manufacturer, named Peter Simpson, down in the Commissioner's office right now. He wants us to lock him up for protection."
"Well," said Nick Valentine, "it looks like I go to the Candia Club!"
Coleman nodded reluctantly. "I don't like it, Valentine. Whoever is behind this business, wants you to go to the Candia Club. It'll just be playing into his hands. But I guess it's the only thing for you to do. We'll give out that you're still suffering from amnesia, and that we're releasing you in Bronson's custody, for treatment. I'll post men around the Candia Club—"
He was interrupted by the ringing of the inter-office telephone. He scooped it up, and listened for a moment, a queer look coming into his face.
"Hold it a minute," he said into the instrument. He covered the phone with his hand, and said to Nick, "Have you got a cousin by the name of Arthur Valentine?"
Nick shook his head. "No."
"Well," said Coleman, "he's here. Downstairs at the desk. He says he heard of your suffering from amnesia, and that it's an old family ailment, and he knows how to handle it. He thinks if he sees you alone for five minutes, he may be able to restore your memory!"
"Ah!" said Nick. "This is a break. Let him in!"
"Alone with you?" Bronson asked doubtfully. "Suppose their idea was to knock you off? Suppose he's here to finish the job?"
Nick smiled, and showed him the automatic, which he had in his coat pocket now.
Bronson was still doubtful. "Suppose he has some kind of gas that will overpower you?"
"I'll have to take that chance."
"I could arrest him," Coleman offered tentatively. "We could take the bird downstairs and sweat him—"
"And suppose he doesn't talk?" Nick objected. "They still have Frank Sheppard and Andrew Garth in their hands. And I'm sure they have Ellen Dixon. That taxi driver must have been one of their agents. He probably took her away after I jumped out of the cab."
Coleman and Bronson exchanged glances. The inspector nodded. "I guess you're right, Valentine. We have to play it their way. I'll go down and bring the guy up."
He went out, leaving Nick and Bronson alone. Nick had a faraway look in his eyes. "If only I hadn't heard that dead man talk," he said, "I'd feel lots better about the whole thing. This way, it gives me the creeps!"
Bronson kept making notes, "Don't let this 'cousin' of yours knock you off, Nicky. I'm depending on you to break the greatest scoop of the decade."
A moment later, the door opened and Coleman re-entered, escorting a man of about forty-five, with a high forehead, and deep-set eyes that seemed to be charged with some sort of static, high-powered electricity.
"Ah!" said the visitor, letting his eyes rest on Nick. "My poor cousin! A terrible thing—terrible."
Coleman led the man to Nick's chair. "This is your cousin, Mr. Arthur Valentine. Do you know him?"
Nick looked up at the visitor. "Hello," he said blankly.
The 'cousin' sighed. "I see. Poor. Nicky has been afflicted, just like our Uncle Tobias, and like my grandfather." He turned to Bronson and Coleman. "If you gentlemen will leave me alone with him for a few minutes—I'd appreciate it very much—"
"Sure, sure," said Coleman. "If you need us, just raise your voice." Then he added significantly, "We'll be waiting right outside the door!"
"Thank you, thank you," said Cousin Valentine. He waited till they both left the room. Then he locked the door on the inside and turned to face Nick. His big, deep-set eyes seemed to have become larger. His whole face became grim and intent as he moved closer to Nick's chair, until he was standing over him.
"Look at me, Nick Valentine!" he ordered in a deep bass voice.
NICK looked up. The man was twirling a silver pencil at
the level of Nick's eyes. There was a big round knob at the top
of the pencil. It was whirling around steadily, monotonously.
The man's voice came in slow, lugubrious fashion. "You're thinking the things I want you to think now, Nick," the man said. "You don't remember anything of the past, but you remember what you saw in your apartment tonight, don't you?"
Nick allowed his eyelids to droop as if he were heavy with sleep.
"Yes," he replied. "Yes, I remember."
"You remember what the 'dead man" told you?"
"Yes."
"Repeat it!"
"He told me to beware of the three drops of blood. He told me to go to the Candia Club."
"Good. You will obey him, Nick. You will go to the Candia Club. And you will wait there until a certain person shows you three drops of blood."
The pencil kept twirling, and the huge eyes of the hypnotist were growing larger and larger, so that Nick felt a terrible sort of fascination. He felt as if the man in front of him were dragging his very soul out of his body with those great and terrible eyes. He realized that if he had been a little weaker, if that gas in the cab had had another moment to work on him, he'd have fallen immediately under the influence of this powerful will. Even now, he was afraid that if he didn't exert every ounce of will-power, he'd succumb to the strange force.
The voice went on, droningly. "Remember what I tell you, Nick. Wait at the Candia Club for the person who will show you three drops of blood. Then you will obey that person. You will do whatever that person orders!"
Nick felt himself unconsciously repeating the instructions, mumbling them to himself. He clenched his hands. He mustn't let himself go—
"Do you remember what you must do?"
Nick nodded, almost automatically. "Yes, I remember. I must go to the Candia Club. I must wait for the person who will show me three drops of blood. Then I must do whatever that person orders—whatever that person orders."
As he repeated those instructions, Nick felt himself about to lose possession of his initiative and his will. That twirling pencil before his eyes had him twirling around with it, like a man caught in a whirlpool.
Suddenly, the silver pencil stopped whirling. The eyes of the hypnotist seemed to recede, to grow smaller. Nick felt as if a great weight were being removed from his brain. The man smiled thinly, and slipped the silver pencil in his pocket.
"I shall go now. See that clock on the desk? Watch it. Five minutes after I am gone, you will remember who you are. You will recover your memory. But you will still obey my orders. You will have no recollection of my visit, but you will know that there is something you must do. Understand?"
"Yes," Nick whispered. "I understand."
The man smiled, and backed to the door. Then he turned swiftly and went out.
IT was a little after eleven, and the Candia Club was a-boom and a-glitter. But underneath the surface, Nick thought he detected sharp-edged tension.
He himself was no exception. For, as he sat picking at a two-dollar-and-fifty-cent lobster, he was not sure that he would be altogether immune to the hypnotic commands which had been laid upon him by his bogus cousin. He had been in a weakened condition from the gas, and the man's hypnotic power had been tremendous. Nick couldn't be certain that he would be able to resist the orders of the person who would show him the three drops of blood.
The whole pattern of this series of crimes was strange and unintelligible to him. Four men in the chemical business had disappeared. Two of them had been stabbed to death, and had talked after their death. Two others were still missing, and might turn up dead at any time. He began to think it had been a mistake to allow himself to be interviewed alone by that hypnotist. Coleman had put two detectives on the man's trail after he left headquarters, but Nick had little faith that they would turn anything up.
Wat Farrago, the proprietor of the Candia Club, was seated at one of the tables, with two women and another man. Nick had seen them when he came in, but Farrago had not looked in his direction. Now, Farrago met his glance, and waved. Nick waved back. Farrago did not seem particularly interested in him. The two women at his table were both gorgeously beautiful, dressed in daring fashion. The man was tall and dark, with the slim hips of a professional dancer.
Looking around at some of the other tables, Nick noted with a small degree of reassurance, that a small group of plainclothes men in evening clothes were seated not far away. At another table near by, Roger Bronson and Inspector Coleman were sipping cocktails and talking to a third man. That third man was Peter Simpson, the chemical manufacturer who had asked to be locked up for protection. Coleman had brought him along on the chance that he might be able to contribute some special bit of information in regard to the chemical industry set-up which would help solve the case.
Nick finished his lobster, and ordered a demi-tasse. He was growing impatient. An hour had passed already, and nothing had happened.
Suddenly, he became tense in his chair. The lights on the stage had gone out, to be replaced by a single spotlight, focussed on the center of the curtain. The master of ceremonies announced through the mike at one end of the stage, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be privileged to witness the premiere appearance in New York of the celebrated Mexican clairvoyant, Pablo Miniver!"
The curtain parted at the middle, and Pablo Miniver stepped out on the stage. He was wearing evening clothes. His face was now adorned by a small waxed moustache, and a Van Dyke beard. Also it was subtly different from the way it had looked at headquarters. But Nick Valentine wasn't fooled. He recognized those eyes at once. The man who called himself Pablo Miniver was his bogus cousin.
Somehow, Pablo Miniver's eyes seemed to swing around unerringly, and focus themselves upon Nick Valentine.
FOR a second, Nick felt as if a ponderous mountain were
pressing down upon his brain. Then the weight was removed as
Miniver's gaze slid away. He did not smile or bow, but began to
speak at once, in a deep and sonorous voice which carried to
every part of the great dining-room without the aid of the
microphone. At once the idle chatter in the room was stilled.
"My friends," he said, "there are strange things upon the face of the earth, which the mind of man is too small to comprehend. What you do not understand, you do not believe. What you fear, you scoff at. Let me prove tonight that the impossible is possible!"
A hush fell over the dining room.
Pablo Miniver stretched out a hand and pointed straight at Peter Simpson, the chemical manufacturer. Simpson was sitting between Bronson and Coleman. He pushed back his chair a little as Miniver's finger focussed upon him, but did not get up. His face was strained and tight.
"You," said Pablo Miniver. "I can read what is in your mind. You are afraid to die!"
BEFORE Simpson could move, Miniver swung his pointing
finger away from him, turned it in another direction, toward a
table in a corner, where a girl sat alone, wrapped in a fur coat.
Following that pointing finger, Nick Valentine gasped. He had not
seen her there when he entered, and he had not seen her come in
through the main entrance. She must have come through one of the
side doors, from the interior of the building. It was the girl of
the taxicab, the one he guessed was Ellen Dixon. Her lace was
white and colorless, and she seemed to shrink from the pointing
finger of the man on the stage.
Pablo Miniver smiled thinly. "You! You are one of those who can testify that there are things beyond the comprehension of the mind of man. For you have talked with the dead!" He paused for a second, then snapped, "Speak! Is it true?"
Ellen Dixon was shivering. She closed her eyes, and nodded.
"It's true!" she said in such a small voice that it would not have been heard except for the sudden deep silence which had descended upon the place.
Pablo Miniver bowed, and turned away from the girl.
Nick thought it was going to be his turn next. Instead, the man on the stage raised his hand, and snapped his fingers.
Immediately, every light in the place went out.
Nick Valentine sprang to his feet and rushed toward the table at which Ellen Dixon was sitting. In order to get there he had to cross the whole dining room. But before he was halfway there, the lights went on again, with blinding suddenness.
He stopped in his tracks, in the center of the milling throng. His first glance was for the table at which Ellen had been sitting. She was no longer there.
Above the shouting and the screaming of the women, he heard Inspector Coleman's voice raised in fervent, violent obscenity. He turned and looked in that direction. Coleman and Bronson were standing beside their chairs. But Peter Simpson's chair was empty. The chemical manufacturer had disappeared!
"By God!" Coleman shouted. "He's gone—right under our noses!"
Nick pushed over to where Coleman was standing, waving his arms and shouting orders.
"Take it easy, Inspector," he said out of the side of his mouth. "You won't find Simpson here any more. Leave this to me. I think my cue is coming up!"
HE kept going right past Coleman, without stopping, for
he noticed that one of the women at Wat Farrago's table was
threading her way through the crowd toward him. He pretended not
to notice her until she took him by the arm.
"I'm Lola," she said. "Were you waiting—for this?"
She held out her left hand for him to see. Upon her index finger there were three little pin-pricks, each with a tiny bubble of blood.
"You know what they mean?"
"Yes. I know. I must do what you order."
"Good. Come with me. Just take hold of my hand—and don't let go!"
He took her hand. She nodded, and raised her left hand in the air, in a sort of signal. At once, all the lights went out once more.
Through the milling, shouting crowd she led him unerringly by the hand. By his sense of direction he knew that they were moving toward the table at which she had sat with Wat Farrago. They passed that table, and she pulled back one of the heavy drapes from the wall. Nick heard rather than saw her open a door behind the drapes. She pushed him through, and whispered, "Go down the stairs. Feel your way carefully."
And then she closed the door behind him.
Nick felt his way down six steps, and came to a landing. As soon as he reached it, a door opened at his right. Light streamed out, framing the figure of Pablo Miniver.
"Come!" ordered the hypnotist, fixing deep-set eyes upon him. He began to back up, down a lighted corridor.
Nick followed him, feeling once more the fascination of those powerful eyes.
They stepped into a low chamber, and some one shut the door behind them.
Miniver smiled gauntly, and waved a hand. "Wait!" he ordered, and turned.
Nick looked around the room. His pulse raced as he noted the occupants.
Two men were seated in armchairs, motionless as if in a trance. He recognized them from pictures which had been shown him at headquarters. They were the two missing chemical magnates, Frank Sheppard and Andrew Garth. From their appearance Nick judged them to be in a hypnotic trance.
Ellen Dixon was standing in a corner, her face white and her slender body trembling. The fur coat was coming open, revealing the black silk nightgown beneath, but she seemed to be unaware of it. Wat Farrago and two other men were standing by the desk, with guns in their hands. Seated at the desk was Peter Simpson, the chemical manufacturer who had disappeared from upstairs a few moments ago. He was writing laboriously with a scratchy pen, and sweating profusely.
NICK craned his neck and saw that Simpson was filling the
sheet with figures—apparently a formula of some kind. No
one spoke while Nick's wrist watch ticked away three full
minutes. At last, Simpson threw down the pen and said, "There it
is, you devil. That's what you want!"
He thrust the sheet of closely written figures into Pablo Miniver's hand.
"Thank you so much!" The hypnotist smiled. "It was so unfortunate that all my hypnotic powers could not induce these other gentlemen to part with the formula."
"They didn't know it," Simpson growled. "We're all making the same explosive, but I'm the inventor of the formula. I supplied their factories with the proper quantities of chemicals, ready to mix."
"Then all our efforts were wasted with Dixon and Mangin, as well as with these two." Miniver nodded toward Sheppard and Garth.
Simpson glared at him. "You've made me a traitor to my country. You've made me give up the formula of our aerial torpedo explosive!"
Miniver smiled. "When my country takes over your country, you shall be properly rewarded."
Simpson laughed nervously. "How are you going to get it out of here? The police have a cordon around the place. They'll search every man and woman before they let them out."
"You forget, my dear Simpson, that we have with us a person who enjoys the confidence of the police!"
Miniver turned to face Nick Valentine. "You understand that you must do exactly as I order?"
"Yes," Nick replied. "I understand."
"I will give you this paper," Miniver went on. "You will take it to the address I shall tell you. The police, of course, will not search you when you leave."
"No, they won't search me," Nick said.
Pablo Miniver was continuing. "This place is mined. If anything should go wrong—for instance, if the police should raid us—we would press a button which would send the whole place up in shreds. Miss Ellen Dixon, whom you have met, Valentine, will remain here until you return."
Nick nodded, trying to make his eyes as blank as possible.
He glanced across at Ellen Dixon, and saw that she was staring at him with all her might. Her lips formed words: "Don't mind me!"
Nick smiled. She was a brave little kid. But the country's safety came first.
Pablo Miniver had gone to a far corner of the room. He pressed a button, and a panel in the wall slid back, revealing a recess in which was set a compact sending and receiving set. Miniver bent over the keys, saying over his shoulder, "Of course, we must be absolutely thorough, Farrago. Before letting this formula get out of our possession, I will transmit it to our Foreign Office."
He flipped over a switch and spoke into the microphone.
"PM calling DNB. PM calling DNB."
There was a long pause, and then a voice over the transmitter: "'Allo, PM. DNB answering PM. Go ahead."
Nick's muscles tensed. He hadn't expected this. He must act now. It would be too late to wait until they sent him out with the formula.
He put his hand in his pocket and took out the automatic.
"Gentlemen," he said, "let's go off the air!"
PABLO MINIVER stopped in the middle of a word, and
whirled around. Wat Farrago and his two gunmen began to shoot
almost as soon as Nick's gun came out. Nick stood with his back
to the wall, the automatic stretched out at arm's length, and
pumped shot after shot at Farrago and the others. A bullet nicked
his shoulder, another ripped his trouser leg. The thunder of the
shots was deafening in the low-ceilinged room. Grimly, Nick kept
on shooting. He got Farrago in the forehead, and one of the other
gunmen in the shoulder. The third man went down when Nick shot
him through the heart.
He swung the gun to bear on Pablo Miniver. The hypnotist had yanked a heavy Luger pistol out of a shoulder holster, and was raising it. Nick grinned thinly, and pulled the trigger of the automatic. There was only a click.
Miniver smiled wolfishly. "So you fooled me, eh, my good Nick Valentine. Well, it seems that we must all die. You first."
"Go ahead," said Nick. "If you can die for that country of yours, I can certainly die for mine. Only I wish you'd tell me one thing—how did you make those dead men talk?"
Miniver's eyes were glowing. "It was a work of art, my friend. A masterpiece of ventriloquism. Observe!"
His lips parted a fraction of an inch, and he raised his head. His lips did not move now, but his Adam's apple went up and down. And marvelously, the dead body of Wat Farrago seemed to be talking in Farrago's own voice. "Heil Hitler!" it said.
"You see, my friend," Miniver explained, "I was on the ledge, outside your window. I threw my voice inside the room. It was a simple matter to have myself lowered by a rope from the roof!"
"Excellent," said Nick. "You're a genius, Mr. Miniver. Too bad you had to fail."
"Too bad, yes, but others will follow. And now, good-by!"
He sighted along the Luger, with his finger curled around the trigger.
Nick fell into a crouch, and hurled himself forward. He would never have had a chance, however, if it hadn't been for Ellen Dixon. She came out of her corner like a little meteor, and hit Pablo Miniver with everything she had. He went reeling sideways, and the Luger exploded away over at an angle. Instead of hitting Nick, the slug thudded into the chest of Peter Simpson, just above the heart.
But nobody noticed him, for Nick had reached Miniver now, and the two of them were locked in a deadly struggle. Nick had hold of the hypnotist's gun-hand, and kept pounding hard rights into the man's heart. Miniver didn't try to block them. He kept struggling to free his gun, and at the same time he gouged at Nick's eyes with the splayed fingers of his left hand.
Nick grinned, and quit punching. This kind of fighting was his meat. He gripped Miniver's gun-wrist in both hands, pivoted on his toes so that his back was to the hypnotist, and then heaved forward with a sudden yank.
Miniver uttered a shout, and went sailing over Nick's shoulder, to land with a thud against the desk. He dropped to the floor and lay still.
Nick Valentine brushed his coat off, and looked at Ellen Dixon. She was white, and swaying on her feet, and her fur coat was flapping wide open. Nick stepped over, gently wrapped the coat around her, and let her rest her head on his shoulder.
There was a sudden avalanche of blows upon the door, and the voice of Inspector Coleman shouted, "Break it down! Break it down, quick!"
Nick led Ellen Dixon over, and opened the door. He faced Coleman, Bronson, and a group of detectives, grinning.
They all crowded around him, but he pushed them aside, and led Ellen Dixon across the room.
"Just a minute," he said. "I've got to go on the air."
He stooped over the sending set, and put his mouth to the microphone, "Calling DNB!" he said. "Nick Valentine calling DNB. PM has signed off for good. You'll have to work out your own formulae. Heil America!"